Updating my profile felt like putting on a suit that doesnt fit

Why I keep checking my notifications for no reason

I sat down yesterday to look at my LinkedIn profile again. It has been sitting there for maybe three years now, mostly gathering dust with an old job title and a headshot from a wedding I attended back in 2021. Every time I get an email notification, I tell myself it is probably just a newsletter or some random endorsement from a former coworker I haven’t spoken to since the office move. Still, I check it. The curiosity is annoying. It’s like a digital version of checking the mailbox for a letter that you know isn’t coming. I have this weird feeling that if I don’t keep the page alive, some hidden opportunity is going to vanish, even though I’m not entirely sure what I’m looking for anymore.

The awkwardness of the open-to-work badge

There is that green banner, the ‘Open to Work’ frame you can slap onto your profile picture. My friend told me it’s essential if you want recruiters to actually notice you, but I just can’t bring myself to turn it on. It feels too desperate, like hanging a ‘For Sale’ sign on your own forehead while you’re still sitting at your desk at your current company. I know people say it’s just business, but the optics feel off. I remember seeing a few people in my feed who had it on, and I instinctively wondered if they were getting fired or if they were just fed up. Maybe that’s my own bias, or maybe I’m just overthinking the social signal of a small green square. Either way, my profile picture stays plain and unadorned for now.

Dealing with the random messages from recruiters

Sometimes I get these messages that feel like they were written by a bot—or maybe they actually were. They always start with ‘I hope you’re doing well’ and then mention a role that has absolutely nothing to do with my background. I had one the other day, a position for a country manager for an EV company I’d barely heard of, and it was so far removed from my actual day-to-day work that I felt insulted and amused at the same time. I suppose it’s flattering that someone is scraping the site for keywords, but it mostly just clutters up my inbox. It makes me wonder if these tools are actually helping anyone connect or if we’re all just shouting into a void of automated templates.

Is the premium subscription worth the cost

I’ve toyed with the idea of paying for the Premium subscription, which is usually around 30 to 40 dollars a month depending on the current promotion or trial offer. I looked at the ‘InMail’ feature and the insights into who is viewing my profile, but then I stopped. Do I really want to know who is looking at me? If I pay for that, I’m just going to obsess over the stats. I’ll be sitting there in the middle of a workday, checking to see if a hiring manager from some tech firm clicked on my page, and for what? It seems like a distraction rather than a tool. I think I’ll save the money for a decent lunch instead. The free version is already stressful enough without adding a subscription fee to the mix.

The feeling of being constantly watched by algorithms

It feels like the whole platform has shifted from a professional directory to a giant, noisy bazaar. Between the award announcements for companies winning ‘social media prizes’ and the scary news stories about hackers using the site to find crypto holders, I feel less like a professional and more like a target. It’s strange how something designed to help us advance our careers now feels like a place where you have to constantly guard your own data. I just wanted to update my resume, but I end up spending an hour deleting connection requests from people I don’t know and turning off notifications so my phone stops buzzing with ‘suggested’ content. I still don’t know if I’ll ever actually apply for a job through it, but I keep the account active, which I suppose is a habit I haven’t figured out how to break yet.